QLab interface

drankin

Member
Can someone recommend hardware for routing Q lab output to various amplifiers? I have looked this up in the past, but can’t remember what I found. We have six amplifiers, and I would like to spend $1000 or so.
 
You mean a multi channel audio interface for the Q-Lab iFruit? You're driving speakers directly rather than through a mixing console?
 
I recently bought one of these to replace a smaller interface that died at one of our high schools . It hasn't been used on a real show yet due to the shutdown, but I did enough testing to know that it works as advertised and sounds decent. It's quite a bit cheaper than your budget and does more than you asked for, but it looks like it's backordered now... There are lots of other similar products of varying prices to consider.

It might help get better suggestions if you give us more details on what your sound system looks like and what you want to accomplish. For example, if your mixer supports Dante, then you could keep the audio digital and not eat up six analog inputs. Is there a DSP between the mixer and the amps? Maybe it makes more sense to skip the mixer and go straight into that?
 
The Roland OctaCapture is in stock at most of the usual dealers. Almost everything else 8x8 or bigger, and under US$1000 is on back order. There are a couple of MOTU units with enough outputs, around 1k (street price) that might work, but I'm not an iFruit/QLab user so can't say which models are suitable.
 
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I am not tech savvy on sound systems. We have a sound craft SI expression. Whatever solution we have needs to be a minimum of $1000 or it doesn’t go under our capital funds budget.We simply need a way to route Q lab signals to four or five different outputs.
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We use a Soundcraft SI Impact connected over USB. Works well, although I would rather the mixer had MIDI or OSC control too.
What is it connected to? Does USB from the computer control what outputs it uses?
What about a Dante card for the console and Dante Virtual Soundcard? 64x64, one little cat5 cable and away you go. Card is a bit above 1000, DVS is like 30 bucks.
Thanks. That might work. The only question I have is does the Mac with QLab connect to the Dante card via USB cable or network cable? It looks like it has only Cat5 connectors on the Dante card. I’ve never run a board with Q lab before so I am a newbie.
 
Do you mean "multiple separate outputs from QLab"? You need the paid version to get that, I think.
The console pic showed the outputs of the mixer... presumably the Qlab computer has been hooked up to the mixer before. After a bit of time, I now think this is a signal routing questions rather than an interface device question.
 
We use a Soundcraft SI Impact connected over USB. Works well, although I would rather the mixer had MIDI or OSC control too.
Hi there, I am
I am not tech savvy on sound systems. We have a sound craft SI expression. Whatever solution we have needs to be a minimum of $1000 or it doesn’t go under our capital funds budget.We simply need a way to route Q lab signals to four or five different outputs.View attachment 20886
Hello! I have been tasked with basically creating a sound system in a studio theater that doesn't have one... and I'd like to route signal from qlab to multiple speaker outs via the MADI/USB combo card in our SI Impact. Did you ever figure out how this works?
 
Hi there, I am

Hello! I have been tasked with basically creating a sound system in a studio theater that doesn't have one... and I'd like to route signal from qlab to multiple speaker outs via the MADI/USB combo card in our SI Impact. Did you ever figure out how this works?
In general, if you have a desk with a USB interface, and you plug it into a WIndows 7 or better or Macintosh PC, you can expect the (usually) 32 sources and 16 destinations to Just Show Up in your PC apps; you can use Audacity as an easy test for this.

If you need multiple play channels *to go to more than 2 speakers* (LR), you can generally expect to have to have to use Aux/Matrix outs on the desk and do some patching. There you delve into Regular Sound Guy territory.
 
In general, if you have a desk with a USB interface, and you plug it into a WIndows 7 or better or Macintosh PC, you can expect the (usually) 32 sources and 16 destinations to Just Show Up in your PC apps; you can use Audacity as an easy test for this.

If you need multiple play channels *to go to more than 2 speakers* (LR), you can generally expect to have to have to use Aux/Matrix outs on the desk and do some patching. There you delve into Regular Sound Guy territory.
It took me just one more glance at the MADI/USB Combo card user manual to see what step I was missing. I have a pretty good understanding of the "regular sound guy" territory, but I haven't done much with the digital/usb/midi interfaces in general. Anywho, I figured it out and answered my own question! Thanks!
 

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